This article is about something nearly unbelievable. Remain skeptical
if you want. Even though I've experienced it, I'm skeptical, though I'm
certainly going to remember this trick, because it works.
Being in pain makes you tired. So tired. It also makes it hard to concentrate or think. Bad news all around, really.
Yesterday I was in so much pain that I couldn't concentrate enough to print off my new project files from the Drop Box I'd been sent (happily, my son helped). I took about triple or more the amount of extra-strength painkillers that the box suggested (to little effect). I added hard alcohol, what little I had in the house, knowing that was rumoured to help other people. I spent an hour soaking in hot water. I tried ice.
Still fairly extreme pain twinging and pulsing and cramping in that oh-so-excruciating way. Nothing was working.
Naturally when time came to sleep, there was no sleep. Exhaustion, uselessness, but no sleep. Sometimes it's in the exhaustion that inspiration comes, and it happened again for me this time.
Alright, I thought. Alternate nostril breathing.
Of course, much better is not to let yourself get so crippled up in the first place. I did this one to myself. In case you're wondering how I found such extreme pain, it was like this: work, eat, work, eat, work, eat, parent, little sleep, more parenting, more working, no meditating, no exercise, and not the best food.
An inactivity injury caused by 8 weeks of not much but sitting in my chair, enchanted with "braining" on a new contract. I knew I should juice instead of eating noodles. I knew I should find more time for yoga. But I was in love with the new contract, and working very hard on it. So I gained about 12 pounds in those weeks and let my body get into this state.
On the plus side, the extreme pain it caused has strengthened my resolve to honour my age by paying my exercise routine first on the weekly schedule in the future! In your 20s and 30s you might get away with abusing your body by sitting in your chair all day and night, but at some point you have to find balance. And I'm clearly now past the tipping point. More attention to health is indicated. :)
Being in pain makes you tired. So tired. It also makes it hard to concentrate or think. Bad news all around, really.
Yesterday I was in so much pain that I couldn't concentrate enough to print off my new project files from the Drop Box I'd been sent (happily, my son helped). I took about triple or more the amount of extra-strength painkillers that the box suggested (to little effect). I added hard alcohol, what little I had in the house, knowing that was rumoured to help other people. I spent an hour soaking in hot water. I tried ice.
Still fairly extreme pain twinging and pulsing and cramping in that oh-so-excruciating way. Nothing was working.
Naturally when time came to sleep, there was no sleep. Exhaustion, uselessness, but no sleep. Sometimes it's in the exhaustion that inspiration comes, and it happened again for me this time.
I know yoga has some magic tricks.
"There must be some breathwork for pain," I thought, hazily.
I turned to the Google machine and typed in "pranayama for pain."Up popped this article. http://www.curejoy.com/content/pranayama-conscious-breathing-pain-relief/
Alright, I thought. Alternate nostril breathing.
It's never done anything for me before, but I'll try it again.The author describes the complicated traditional Indian mudras (hand positions) and breathing patterns. I didn't read the rest of the article until this morning. I just read enough to get "alternate nostril breathing," put down the computer, and got to it.
I did not do the fancy mudras and patterns described.
I just covered one nostril with a finger and breathed.Not a word of a lie. Less than a minute and my back freed up. The intense sensation I'd been experiencing for ten hours vanished (temporarily -- it's still there, dull and reminding me I need more fixing, but I'm continuing with alternate nostril breathing and it reduces the pain every time so far. And I have not had any more of those intense, can't-stand-straight pains).
Then I covered the other and breathed.
Then switch, breathe. Switch, breathe. In. Out. and In. and Out.
Next time you're in pain, try that. I hope it works for you too.
Of course, much better is not to let yourself get so crippled up in the first place. I did this one to myself. In case you're wondering how I found such extreme pain, it was like this: work, eat, work, eat, work, eat, parent, little sleep, more parenting, more working, no meditating, no exercise, and not the best food.
An inactivity injury caused by 8 weeks of not much but sitting in my chair, enchanted with "braining" on a new contract. I knew I should juice instead of eating noodles. I knew I should find more time for yoga. But I was in love with the new contract, and working very hard on it. So I gained about 12 pounds in those weeks and let my body get into this state.
On the plus side, the extreme pain it caused has strengthened my resolve to honour my age by paying my exercise routine first on the weekly schedule in the future! In your 20s and 30s you might get away with abusing your body by sitting in your chair all day and night, but at some point you have to find balance. And I'm clearly now past the tipping point. More attention to health is indicated. :)
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